bkoganbing Cornel Wilde who preferred to chart his own course in independent film making as opposed to going to television as so many of his contemporaries were doing made a fine one with Storm Fear. As per usual his wife Jean Wallace joined in the endeavor. It must have been good for him as well as financing for his movies to have a leading lady instantly available.In this film Wilde is a nominal bad guy. A charming bank robber at least as far as the women are concerned. At least as far as Jean Wallace is concerned as they had a son together, but it was Wilde's older brother Dan Duryea, a would be novelist who married Wallace and carried on the fiction that he was David Stollery's father. They live in a remote area of one of our Rocky Mountain states.Wilde's just robbed a bank and he and his two surviving accomplices, Lee Grant and Steven Hill head for the Duryea-Wallace farm as a hideout and to recuperate as Wilde was shot in the holdup. Of course while they're there Duryea spots some sparks between Wilde and Wallace. Wilde who directed as well as played the lead got some complex emotions out of his players. He's a bad guy, but still charming in his own way and protects his family from what a psychotic Steven Hill might do. Wallace is still in love with Wilde, but knows full well what a charming liar he is. Duryea is a decent, but inadequate man who knows he's been a failure far from his usual variety of psychotic villains.Before Kirk Douglas's more celebrated breaking of the blacklist with hiring Dalton Trumbo for the Spartacus screenplay, Wilde did some blacklist breaking of his own in hiring Lee Grant in what turned out to be only her second feature film. Grant does very well in a role that calls for her to be a good natured gangster's moll who meets with a tragic end. In fact the most straight forward part in the film is that played by Dennis Weaver as the hired hand on the Duryea-Wallace farm who goes chasing the robbers.Wilde assembled a fine supporting cast to support him as an actor and his vision as producer/director. One reason he could hire Lee Grant was because he was producer of Storm Fear which was released by United Artists. He created a real winner here.

Robert J. Maxwell Gangster Cornell Wilde and his small-minded sidekick Adam Schiff -- I mean Steven Hill -- show up unexpectedly with a bag of loot at the remote farm house of his big brother, the failed writer Dan Duryea, and his blond hausfrau Jean Wallace. Their child, David Stollery, is a witness to the conflicts, arguments, violence, deaths, and general mishigas that takes place during the visit. Dennis Weaver has a small part as the good neighbor.The screenplay was by Horton Foote, the direction by Wilde, and the cast and crew professionally competent, with some exceptions. The result is almost a stage play in which fierce disagreements take place.Wilde does adequately by the part of the tough guy who genuinely doesn't want to intrude but has no place else to go because the police are all over the place searching for him and his buddy. He adds an almost indiscernible stutter to his voice in moments of stress. Nothing is made of it. It's just a nice touch that makes him human. He has a couple of shirtless scenes during which his wounds are treated by Wallace and I hated him for that. How can he be so muscular and sound at the age of forty-three? The swine.Jean Wallace is not much of an actress but she looks as if she would be perfectly at home milking cows on a Polish włość. I hope you appreciate that Polish word. It means "small farm." Took me half an hour to find the proper alphabet. Dan Duryea -- well, we missed his slick-backed hair and straw boater and his whining voice and his slapping dames around. Here, he's a fagged out lunger wrapped up in sweaters and scarves and looking as if the North Korean Army had just marched over him. Steven Hill is unrecognizable except as the stereotype he is. And as for the kid, kids will be kids. Everybody loves them, except Hill.Overall it's pretty depressing. It's claustrophobic. It resembles a staged play in which the set dresser was drunk all the time. And the story, for all its shouting, is a little weak in humanity. (See "Hud" for a successful example of how to make a movie about a couple of people on a ranch.) Poor Dan Duryea freezes in the snow. It's not quite certain exactly where his body is found, through either careless direction or editing. But if I were despondent and depressed, a total failure -- and I AM -- I think I'd hang myself if I had to live in a seedy dump like that.

danaq The outdoor scenes in Storm Fear were filmed near Sun Valley, Idaho. A local fellow named Eddie Bennett donned a fur coat and a blonde wig, and played "Edna" when she was pushed off the rock formation (which is located about 3/4 of the way from Ketchum NW to Galena Lodge). Eddie later gave the wig to my father, who gave it to me. Mr. Wilde was kind to a young girl eager to become a writer, and gave me one of the working scripts of Storm Fear. My little sister and I (in our serious moments) read the lines and acted out the script very seriously. In our silly moments, we took turns wearing the wig while the other shouted "Die, Edna, die!" and pushed "Edna" off the roof of our grandparents' house into deep snow.

David Hoffman Storm Fear is a contrast of brothers, both of whom have failed in life. Cornel Wilde plays the `bad' brother, fleeing from a bank robbery. Dan Duryea is the `good' brother who can't come to grips with his own artistic and personal failures. I do not like Cornel Wilde, yet I found he created a sympathetic, very human `good-for-nothing', a surprisingly less intelligent role for a lead actor to play. Duryea, on the other hand, is much less sympathetic, perhaps because he is reaching for stars that are obviously out of his grasp. Jean Wallace is quite good as Duryea's wife and Wilde's former lover. She effectively straddles the worlds of both men. Steven Hill portrays the unstable member of Wilde's gang, but he doesn't seem quite sure how far to take his character at times.This should have been more claustrophobic with 6 people cooped up in a house in a snow storm, but the script handles this nicely. The film gives the appearance of being an inexpensive production; yet, it makes the most of what is there in set, actors, etc. Wilde does a credible job of directing. Elmer Bernstein's score is a plus. The ending, however, is totally unsatisfactory, obviously bowing to conventions of the mid 50s when uncompromising films were not the norm.